the presiding officer: the senator from michigan. ms. stabenow: let me just take a moment and thank senator merkley, senator baucus, wyden and mccaskill for joining us. i know others will join us as well. we are still working very hard to complete a farm bills to have the house take action, but in the meantime we have disasters that have occurred, and this -- these provisions are lifted directly from what we already passed in the farm bill that address what has happened in terms of livestock drought and fires and assistance for fruit tree growers, and we will be speaking at a later time about it, but these are essential to be included for thousands and thousands of farmers and ranchers across the country. i thank my colleagues for allowing us to step in. ms. landrieu: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. ms. landrieu: thank you, madam president. i am going to truncate my remarks to five minutes. i came to speak on the supplemental and the great needs in the northeast. generally, because i know that there ar